Dinner! 2012

[mgaretz]

Wow, interesting, no ground pork in addition to the ground beef?

No and no veal either, though CI says the gelatin does what the veal does. I'm not sure I notice - I'm tempted to leave it out and see if it really makes any difference.

I've thought about making it with "meatloaf mix" which is blend of beef, pork and veal, but no one seems to carry it in my area any longer. I used to see it all the time.

[mm84321]

Scallop with walnuts and cider

Black bass with sesame

Sole with little artichokes

[C. sapidus]

ScottyBoy – beautifully crispy fried chicken

Patrick – Details on the murgh chana masala, please

Edit - never mind, I see that you linked the recipe on the chole thread. Thanks!

mm84321 – How did you get such beautiful color on your scallops?

Steak salad, one of my favorite summer meals. Grilled ribeyes, marinated with garlic, white pepper, and soy sauce. Ginger-lime dipping sauce as salad dressing. Romaine, cucumber, tomato, scallions, cilantro, and sliced shallots in the salad.

Summer in a bowl.

Edited August 28, 2012 by C. sapidus (log)

[ScottyBoy]

I'm about to have a heart attack...

Curry beer batter for Cod, matsutakes, blue lake beans, corn bread balls, onions and I made some tartar sauce. Roommate wanted some fried stuff again tonight so what the hell. Fry all the things!

[Pierogi]

Mark, I may (ok, I *do*) need the recipe for that loaf. I made one a couple of weeks ago that a) nearly killed me (I unfortunately was boxed into making it on day with 100°-+ temps and 80%-+ humidity.....) and b) the recipe just sucked. No other words, just....sucked. Even the leftover sandwich a couple of days later was sucky. The 3/4 of it left went into the offering to the Trash Gods today.

Thanks Pierogi. Here you go:

Mine is an adaptation of one of the many CI recipes for the "best" meatloaf (it kills me that they keep recycling the recipes claiming they are all the best!).

(snippy snippity......)

Thanks Mark ! I think I did see that recipe at some point, and, like you thought "yeah, the 10,000th best meatloaf recipe from CI, carry on". I'll give it a try because it really looks great.

[Pierogi]

I've thought about making it with "meatloaf mix" which is blend of beef, pork and veal, but no one seems to carry it in my area any longer. I used to see it all the time.

Yeah, me too, and isn't that annoying?

[Ashen]

anniversay Dinner for my wife and I last Sunday.

Short Rib roast on the BBQ.

We also have garlic mashed new yukon gold pots and a baby lettuce salad.

Maple creme brulee for dessert

maple syrup in the custard and then pure granulated maple sugar for the top brulee

[rotuts]

mm84321:: what times dinner? Ill be over!

and the rest: stunning and delicious as usual'

re Meatloaf: Ive never made a beef meat loaf thats anywhere as good as the ground turkey ones I make. but Ill put mgaretz' on the list for the fall!

[jfrater]

My boyfriend is Vietnamese and is learning to cook European food by going step by step through the Cordon Bleu at Home book. Last night he cooked lesson six. It was all truly yummy!

Starter: Tarte a l'Oignon (onion tart)

Main: Mouclade (mussels in wine and cream sauce)

Pudding: Bavarois a la Vanille, Coulis de Framboise (vanilla Bavarian cream with raspberry sauce).

[ScottyBoy]

Ohhh excellent!

[patrickamory]

Wow, love those dishes! Is he restraining himself from adding any/all touches of southeast Asian cuisine (especially considering how inflected Vietnamese cooking is by French?)

[jfrater]

Wow, love those dishes! Is he restraining himself from adding any/all touches of southeast Asian cuisine (especially considering how inflected Vietnamese cooking is by French?)

He is definitely restraining himself. He is a very good cook when he makes Vietnamese style food but he is equally good with European style - keeping them both completely separate. He has excellent taste buds so his seasoning is spot on every time too.

[Kim Shook]

dcarch – ooooh, soft shells! I haven’t had nearly enough of them this summer! Gorgeous!

chefmd – your duck looks absolutely perfectly cooked!

Andrew – beautiful plate of food! Can I enquire about the caramelized tomato jam? I am intrigued.

Shane – I am drooling over the piglet. I didn’t realize at first that it was boned and thought you’d cooked a pig-dachshund mix !

David – beautiful oysters! Great combining the hominy with the oysters.

Dinner tonight:

Fried shrimp, fries, baked spinach with feta and Hanover tomatoes. Mr. Kim also had some roasted asparagus:

The spinach tasted good, but was awfully dry:

Maybe next time I’ll cover while baking and add an extra egg.

[SobaAddict70]

Minestra di zucchine e scarola

Doable in about an hour, including vegetable prep. You can make the stock in advance (either chicken or vegetable stock), or use water. The basic template is: a battuto (onion, celery, carrot) cooked in olive oil, to which is added -- potato and zucchini, salt and pepper, and stock or water. Cook for about 10 to 15 minutes over medium heat or until the vegetables are tender. Towards the last 5 minutes of cooking, add chopped escarole. Taste for salt and pepper, stir in Italian parsley and maybe a heaping tablespoon of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, then serve at once.

Unlike a minestrone, this is meant to be a first course. You can add rice, pasta, beans or increase the amount of potato to make it heartier. Or add pancetta, sausage or ham in the beginning if you'd like a "meat-y" flavor in addition to the vegetables.

Spaghetti con funghi e aglio

A variant of Lidia Bastianich's recipe, which you can view here: www.lidiasitaly.com/recipes/detail/806

This version has several changes, not the least of which is that it's been sized to serve one and doesn't contain as much garlic. I'll have the recipe on the blog later this week.

[Mr Holloway]

Kim: Thanks, that little pig doggie went so fast ,I barely got a taste .

Ashen: Dave, that dessert looks and sound amazing. Nice roast too

Shane

Edited August 29, 2012 by Mr Holloway (log)

[SobaAddict70]

Leftovers tonight, but there were also these:

Warm green bean and potato salad

Fresh peach crumble, unsweetened yogurt

[harrysnapperorgans]

Here’s a few recent dinners

Tonight’s effort - Bangers and Mash for me and the kids.

My wife doesn’t really like potatoes, so I made her a Ratatouille Spaghetti with tuna and lemon.

I also made a batch of onion marmalade, some which you can see on my plate below:

Yesterday - Grilled seafood (Paddle Crab, Red Cod, Greenshell mussels) Roast potatoes, Salad:

A week or so ago: Crumbed Hoki, Kumara Chips:

Edited August 30, 2012 by harrysnapperorgans (log)

[Kim Shook]

Stash – the minestra looks gorgeous – so bright and clear!

Yesterday’s lunch was fried green tomatoes and corn chowder:

That’s paprika oil on top of the chowder – a nice addition.

Mr. Kim’s fantasy football draft party was last night. Mr. Kim smoked some pork butt for BBQ and I provided the rest. Snacky stuff included Quick Party Nuts, Combos and M&M’s:

One of Mr. Kim’s favorites, these are just pecans and almonds with chili powder, lime zest, cumin and cayenne.

We offered BBQ pork:

Fabulous, as always. Heating it up in a slow cooker kind of obliterates the smoke ring, but it started out with a nice ring and was SO tender and porky and moist.

With sauce (thick and thin), buns and slaw:

For the folks that didn’t eat pork, I did Tex-Mex Chicken Crunchies (stupid name):

They are just chicken tenders dipped in enchilada sauce and then crushed taco-flavored Doritos before frying. Served with flatbread, salsa and pickled red onions to make wraps. The pickled red onions MADE these wraps. They were such a great addition – both to texture and flavor.

Smoky beans:

Ruhlman’s Mac & cheese:

The only mac & cheese that Mr. Kim actually requests. It turned out very well, I thought and I heard the ‘old’ guys telling the couple of new guys that they were really in for a treat. Nice.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Beefy-cheesy-noodly casserole here. This stuff is only barely classier than hamburger helper when you get down to ingredients, but good lord when it's got 5 cheeses in it it's so good that I tend to eat half the pan.

And for dessert, orange cake from Family Feedbag (recipe here) - this is my new favourite quick cake. I didn't wait quite long enough to glaze it (which means that rather than sitting on the surface, the glaze got slurped up by the cake.)

[mm84321]

Found some very nice lima beans today. I braised them with bacon, cream, and savory.

[avaserfi]

Andrew – beautiful plate of food! Can I enquire about the caramelized tomato jam? I am intrigued.

Thank you. I started with peeled and seeded tomatoes and caramelized them in a hot pan. Deglazed as needed with tomato water and finished with a nice fish sauce.

[SobaAddict70]

thanks Kim. I love me some mac-n-cheese.

last night:

leftover soup and salad and:

Skillet escarole

Pollo alla cacciatora, semolina bread

This is pretty close to the original version of chicken cacciatore -- nothing but garlic, rosemary, San Marzano tomatoes, chicken, olive oil, peperoncino and sea salt. Not that the Americanized versions aren't tasty (the ones with sausage, peppers, onion and mushrooms), but they're not what I'm interested in.

Edited August 31, 2012 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[avaserfi]

shrimp, roasted grits, cheddar crisp, caramelized onion-shrimp sauce, onion snow, chives

[ScottyBoy]

As always, very nice to go to your blog and see the run-down of this.

[Shelby]

I come here almost every day to see what you guys have made so I can drool. I haven't posted for a while...I haven't made anything new or interesting for quite some time. BUT.......

I finally made butter chicken and naan last night. Thank you so much to all of the people that helped me on the Fenugreek seed thread! I've never cooked this kind of food before. OMG the butter chicken was flavored soooooo.....DEEP. The sauce was so rich that you got full after just a few bites. I might have had more for breakfast this morning. I wonder is butter chicken one of those dishes that varies from house to house? I think some chunks of peppers and onions would be good in there, too, along with the ones that got blended up for the sauce.

The naan wasn't nearly as scary to make as I thought it would be. However, I'm not sure if it's too thick or too thin or just right? I've never seen it in real life before.